


Suspended Animation

by Anonymous



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dark, Disturbing Themes, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, Warnings at END of fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:04:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2203065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not long after his and John's ordeal at the pool, Sherlock is captured by Moriarty, who isn't yet finished playing with him.  Moriarty seems to know exactly what to do to cause Sherlock the most intense distress: take away his control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suspended Animation

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Dark and disturbing; potentially triggering. I recommend reading the warnings, which can be found at the end of the fic.
> 
> This story was inspired by [this marvellous drawing.](https://i.imgbox.com/aYPNxA3w.jpg) If you like Moriarty/Holmes, [this artist](http://trururu-matthew.deviantart.com) has done many great pieces for the pairing!
> 
> The timeline in this story will depart from that of the show in various ways. [Originally posted at my LJ.](http://iguana-dog.livejournal.com/3642.html)

Sherlock came to consciousness to the sound of blood pulsing through the veins in his ears. His head and hands felt heavy and swollen, and as he regained his senses and opened his eyes he realised that he was suspended upside-down. He appeared to be in an abandoned industrial building - in what geographical location exactly he couldn't yet determine. Indirect light from an unseen window high above him was the only illumination available, and the far corners of the large room were in deep shadow. He craned his neck to look up at his bare feet and saw that each of his ankles was fastened separately, by an oddly complex arrangement of ropes, to a thick metal beam that appeared to be part of the support structure of the concrete building. He could feel no injuries to his person, and all limbs responded to his command, for which he was deeply thankful.

His arms, which were currently dangling heavily only inches from the floor, were also wrapped in rope; not tightly, but securely enough that he was unable to loosen them from each other. His wrists were pressed lightly together at the pulse points, but he was able to move his fingers sufficiently that he thought he might be able to manipulate the ropes binding his ankles, if only he could reach them. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and summoned all his strength to curl his body upward, hands groping for the cloth covering his left leg, bending the knee to bring him closer to his goal. 

A sudden sharp pain in his left ankle made him gasp and lose his grip, and he flopped back down to his former position, blood rushing swiftly down into his head and hands. The sudden motion set him swinging slightly, and a dull throb of pain welled rhythmically in his left ankle with the continued movement. He sighed with frustration, realising that the way he'd been bound, with his legs pulled well apart and all his weight being supported solely by his ankles, had been designed specifically to cause him injury if he attempted to free his feet. To reach for either foot would put a dangerous amount of strain on the thin joints. He knew it would be unwise to risk a lame leg if he intended to escape this place alive, and so he focussed on trying to learn more about his surroundings.

There were no noticeably unique smells in the air, but he could hear the very faint noises of constant traffic outside the building. Urban area, most likely. He was possibly still in London. He glanced all around his immediate surroundings, and saw a few old waterstains on the floor around him, but no particularly suggestive debris, no footprints... the place was surprisingly free of dust, actually, in the general area nearest him. Building cleaned for a purpose, then, and not randomly selected by his captor. This was a highly organised individual or group. He was unable to twist around to look behind himself, so he instead arched his back as far as he was able until he caught a glimpse of a wall with a door in it perhaps ten paces behind him. His ankle complained again at this effort, and he went limp once more and returned to his memories.

* * *

Remarkable, the trails people leave behind them, _Sherlock thought, smirking to himself a little. He marvelled continually at the shining paths leading him to any subject he might care to pursue, like the marks left by snails as they go about their daily business. So few people gave the slightest thought to the wealth of information they discarded from hour to hour, a fact that often made Sherlock's job a little too easy. And so he took to challenging himself._

_Today's task was chewing gum. An item often discarded right on the pavement, and one which showed quite predictable signs of ageing when exposed to the elements; in other words, an ideal source of information on who had passed by a particular area at a particular time._

_Sherlock crouched down and drew an old, blunt scalpel and a small plastic bag from his jacket pocket. He'd found a good sample of well-aged chewing gum that he planned to compare to the piece he had deliberately spat out on the pavement in front of 221b two months ago. He'd been collecting gum for comparison every three days since that time, and was beginning to develop a keen eye for dating the small pieces of masticated polymer. He scraped up a portion of the old gum and dropped it in the bag, replacing his collection tools in his jacket and rising to his feet, feeling satisfied with his progress._

_He jumped like a startled cat when a sudden sharp, stinging pain erupted into his awareness from the region of his right buttock, but moments later he found himself on hands and knees struggling desperately to retain consciousness as his mind stubbornly tried to pull him down into the blackness beyond sleep. He was quickly overwhelmed and his mind disappeared into nothingness just before his body hit the ground._

* * *

The last thing he was able to remember before awakening in his current predicament was the sudden, swift, nearly silent pad of footsteps some distance behind him as he stood in the alley, just prior to the sharp pain he'd experienced. He hadn't noticed he was being followed until it was already too late. He'd obviously been injected with something, but what it had been and who had done it remained unclear. Judging by the rate at which the footsteps had approached him, he was reasonably certain it was someone large, with a lengthy stride, but that was not much to go on.

He was jerked from his thoughts by the scraping of the metal door behind him, and he arched backward again quickly to see who or what would come through. He recognised the small form immediately, and he went a bit cold at the sound of the sing-song voice that chimed out in greeting.

"Hello again, Sherlock. My, but you _do_ look good like that." 

"Moriarty," Sherlock said with a note of resignation in his tone. He might have known that the man would not be satisfied with capturing only John. Sherlock cursed himself inwardly for his own complacency.

"Call me Jim, please."

"I'd really rather not."

"So formal! Aren't we friends by now? I thought we had fun last time." Sherlock heard his footsteps approaching. He'd probably have another syringe of whatever had knocked Sherlock out before, and it would be best not to find out the hard way, the detective decided, discarding his brief notion of trying to strangle Moriarty if he came close enough.

"What do you want? If you involve John in this, I will make you regret it."

"Ooh, big words from the ornament that's decorating my office," Moriarty mocked, walking around to Sherlock's front side, "I'm _so_ frightened. But don't fret, it's just you and me this time. Just a little game for the two of us." He smiled his plastic smile at Sherlock and cocked his head. He was considerably less well-dressed this time than at their last encounter, Sherlock noted, clad only in a thin t-shirt, white shorts, and leather sandals. 

"I can't play a game if I don't know the rules," Sherlock pointed out.

"They're quite simple," Moriarty said, now approaching Sherlock where he hung. He walked right up till he was uncomfortably close and placed both his hands on the white flesh of Sherlock's exposed belly, starting to stroke down towards his chest. Sherlock slammed his bound hands up into Moriarty's crotch, earning a loud exclamation of pain as the other man shied away, clutching at the source of his agony. Moriarty fell to his knees, breathing in sharp, shallow bursts, and remained that way on the floor for half a minute, letting the pain ebb and regaining his composure. Sherlock's reaction had been instant, a product of many hours of defence training, and he immediately regretted it, knowing his adversary's unpredictably violent personality. He hoped that he hadn't just dramatically shortened his own life span. 

Moriarty at last turned his face to look at Sherlock and his features were painted with quiet rage. "We can do this the hard way, Sherly, dear," he said quite seriously. "I'm just as happy to see your insides as your outside, you know. I have a little pal who'll be just _so_ pleased to help me, too." He whistled sharply over his shoulder.

Immediately, from an unseen corner of the room, there resounded the deep, rumbling bark of a large dog. The animal barked twice more and whined with excitement.

Sherlock immediately froze and stared hard at the other man's face, trying to read his intent. "You wouldn't," he said, finally.

"I would!" Jim said with mock-cheerfulness. "You've _no_ idea how deliciously erotic the sight of blood has become for me. Dear Sebastian has seen to that. Oh, OOPS! You weren't meant to know about him, yet! No, matter, I suppose. He can handle himself."

"But you'd be so _bored_ without me," Sherlock said slightly mockingly, deliberately ignoring the mention of Moriarty's confederate, filing the information away for later contemplation.

"You rate yourself quite highly," Moriarty replied. "And yet you're willing to end our game in the jaws of my cane corso? What a _stupid_ , stubborn thing to do." Moriarty stood up and walked off in the direction of the barking. Sherlock's heart rate began to pick up. He'd thought Moriarty had been bluffing about turning the dog on him; the man didn't fit the profile of the type to be satisfied with a simple, gory victory. Sherlock watched with growing fear as the other man returned leading a large muzzled dog on a chain lead. The animal was coal black and extremely muscular, with a mastiff's huge head and jaws. Its ears had been docked to tiny points and its eyes were yellow and intelligent, like a wolf's.

The dog began to growl low in its throat as it approached Sherlock, but it didn't pull against the lead at all; Moriarty clearly had it under expert control.

"Sherlock, I'd like you to meet Galba. Galba, Sherlock. I'm sure you two will get on like a house a-fire." He stopped the animal a few paces from where Sherlock was suspended and removed the lead and muzzle, then walked away, out of Sherlock's line of sight. The dog didn't move, but stared intently at its intended prey, its muscles tense and trembling with anticipation for its master's next command. Sherlock avoided making eye contact with the animal and held very still. He was painfully aware of the vulnerability of his position; a single bite to his fully exposed neck could cause death by haemorrhage in a matter of minutes. 

Unexpectedly, a light flicked on somewhere overhead and Sherlock glanced up momentarily, looking for the source of the new illumination, before returning his gaze to the floor to avoid the dog's eyes. He realised with a sudden sick sensation in his guts that what he had taken for old waterstains on the floor were nothing of the kind. 

In the wan light from the single bulb above him he could just make out the rusty brown tinge to the marks that stained the concrete. His insides went ice-cold.

Moriarty returned moments later, carrying a cloth sack with something inside it, and he paused and stood smiling, looking between his dog and Sherlock. "Should I let you play with your new toy, Galba? He doesn't want to play with me, so maybe I should let you play with him instead." Before Sherlock had a chance even to raise his arms to defend his face and neck, Moriarty made a clicking noise with his mouth, and the dog lunged forward, snarling viciously.

All in the space of a second, Sherlock shut his eyes and thought of what his last words would have been if he'd had the chance to say them, Moriarty gave a short whistle, and the dog skidded to a halt inches from Sherlock's face.

For several seconds, Sherlock didn't understand why his neck wasn't being torn open, but then he felt the dog's hot breath on his face, and heard it growling deep in its throat with every exhale. He opened his eyes. The animal's entire body was trembling with the effort of obeying its master instead of its instincts, and it bared its teeth at Sherlock when their eyes met. The sight of a massive jaw full of large, sharp teeth touched something deep and primitive inside Sherlock's brain, and his heart was pounding so fast that his head was beginning to hurt. He shivered involuntarily and broke out in a cold sweat, his limbs turning icy cold as his body was pumped full of cortisol and adrenaline in preparation for a fight or an escape that he hadn't the power to make. 

"Baiting is such a fine sport," Moriarty commented, the intrusion of his voice breaking the spell of primal fear that had enveloped Sherlock.

"It's not baiting when the prey is tied up," Sherlock gritted though his teeth, his voice shaking despite his best effort to control it.

"Well, I usually leave the arms free for this game, but we both know that you'd've been out of here long ago if I'd done that for you."

"Let me down."

"Are you ready to play the game by my rules? Or would you like to carry on your way?" Sherlock didn't answer. He wasn't ready to agree to rules that hadn't been explicitly stated. Not when the one making the rules was undeniably out of his mind. Moriarty sighed dramatically. "Ok, if you insist, Sherlock. Galba, here boy."

Sherlock had not expected the dog to be called off and watched with trepidation as Moriarty untied the end of the sack he held. What did one keep in a sack? A snake? Sherlock thought he might pass out if there was a snake in the bag; he had one irrational fear, and that was the legless reptiles, particularly the venomous ones. How could Moriarty possibly have known that? He had told no one. Sherlock had a sudden vision of the bag being tied onto his head, so that he would have to share space with whatever was inside of it...

But it wasn't a snake. It was a rabbit.

Moriarty pulled it out of the bag, kicking, by its long ears, and Sherlock's panicking mind went blank for a moment, unable to comprehend this portion of reality. Moriarty held the small animal up for a moment over Galba, the dog's stump of a tail wagging heartily, paws prancing with excitement. The dog barked once. Moriarty glanced over at Sherlock to make sure he was watching, then dropped the rabbit.

The little creature never stood a chance. Before it had the opportunity to bolt, the dog had seized it by the back and started shaking it violently. The rabbit let out one horrible scream and then was silent as it its spine audibly snapped, and its blood spattered across the hard floor. Sherlock's eyes were riveted to the grotesque spectacle until a hot drop of the rabbit's blood hit his face. That shocked him out of his trance and he looked up at Moriarty. The cold eyes gave no indication of what was occurring inside the head, and Sherlock couldn't be certain that the man possessed enough patience to refrain from siccing the dog on him if he refused to cooperate. Ready or not, Sherlock was out of options.

"I'm ready to play your game."

* * *

John allowed himself to sleep in a bit that morning; he wouldn't have any work at the surgery until the afternoon, and he planned to sit on his arse and read the entire newspaper just because he could. He spent close to an hour drifting in and out of dreams and luxuriating in the warmth under the duvet before he finally persuaded himself to emerge from his soft sanctuary and engage with the rest of the world, feeling decidedly decadent and privileged.

When he did at last meander downstairs he noticed immediately that Sherlock was not in. What had he been talking about yesterday? Chewing gum? Something to do with chewing gum. He'd keep himself busy out in the city for at least a few hours, then, before returning home.

Once John had finished his leisurely breakfast he left a text message for Sherlock. _"Hi, Sherlock. Let me know what you'd like for lunch and I'll order in."_ He didn't fully expect the man to answer, as Sherlock often forgot to eat when thoroughly absorbed in his work, but it was worth a try.

Later, with midday come and gone, John rose to take a break from typing up recent cases for his blog. He glanced at the clock and was surprised to see that it was past three already, and he wondered what Sherlock was up to, as he had an appointment with a client at five o'clock, and generally liked to be freshly washed and free of street grime when interviewing his clients. Perhaps the woman calling on them would be treated to the stinky, sweat-soaked Sherlock that he himself was all too familiar with, John thought with amusement. He sent Sherlock another text. _"If not lunch, how about dinner?"_

* * *

Moriarty left the dog with the still-twitching remains of the rabbit, the canine happily ripping out bits of innards and swallowing them whole. He approached Sherlock and gazed down at him from a few steps away.

"I'm _so_ glad you chose me over Galba," Moriarty said, "he's a bit rough with his playmates, and I was worried I wouldn't have much left of you when he was finished."

"What are the rules?" Sherlock demanded stonily, refusing to let his face betray the fear he felt.

"Always so serious! We're _playing_ , Sherlock. I think you'll like this game even better than our last one. Might even learn something new. Who knows!" Moriarty made a disturbing imitation of an enthusiastic expression, and began to slowly circle Sherlock. "The rules are simple, as I told you before you decided to be difficult."

As he came to Sherlock's side, he reached a hand out and began to glide his fingertips over the bared skin of Sherlock's waist, hand trailing after him as he moved. Sherlock instantly tensed, but then forced himself to relax. Fear was what the man wanted.

" _You_ will promise to behave yourself. No naughty tricks like last time, or I really will lose patience with you, darling." He completed his circle, hand falling from Sherlock's skin as he moved to stand before his captive. "And if you keep your end of the bargain, I will promise not to leave any lasting marks on you."

Sherlock stared up at Moriarty's face, hoping to gain further meaning from his aspect, but the man's features remained as carefully schooled as Sherlock's and provided no additional information. What exactly did he intend to do? "No lasting marks" might not mean "no marks at all", and Sherlock wouldn't be surprised if the man practised something like vivisection as a hobby. He was so caught up with trying to determine the nature of Moriarty's game that it took him a minute to notice what was right in front of his face.

Restrained by the soft fabric of Moriarty's shorts there lay his fully erect penis, its contours plainly obvious despite the covering. Sherlock's eyes widened minutely as he came to a sudden understanding of what his captor wanted from him. He glanced up to Moriarty's face, and the man was smirking at him.

"Finally cottoned on, now? Yes, that's all about you, sexy. You're _delicious_ and you don't even know it, do you?"

A cold sensation settled in Sherlock's gut and he swallowed hard.

"So," Moriarty asked in a casual tone, as if asking Sherlock's opinion on the weather, "do you agree to play by my rules?"

Sherlock glanced behind the standing figure to where the dog lay on the floor loudly crunching a disembodied leg. "I agree," Sherlock said finally, his face covered with his best emotionless mask.

"Lovely! I thought you would." Moriarty reached for the buttons on his shorts and soon had his erection in his hand. He moved in close, his hips right at Sherlock's eye-level, and Sherlock quickly turned his face away. "Oh, come on, be a sport, Sherly," Moriarty chided, and pressed the tip of his penis to Sherlock's cheek. "Give us some head." He dragged the tip across Sherlock's face, leaving a wet trail behind, and tried to press it to Sherlock's lips, but the other man turned his head even further away, jaw clenched. He wanted very much to bite, but knew exactly what that would result in.

"Ok, ok, I won't make you, you pretty thing." Moriarty pulled back a little and returned his erection to its confinement in his shorts. "Do you have any idea how specially I'm treating you? If you were anybody else I'd be doing exactly as I liked with you whether you wanted it or not." Here he began to unbutton Sherlock's shirt, fingers brushing lightly over skin. "But you know, I _like_ you. I really, honestly do. And that's why I'm being just _so_ nice to you. I hope we can play _lots_ more games in the future." With all the buttons undone, Sherlock's shirt slid down around his shoulders, exposing his lean white chest and stomach, and the long curve of his back. The slight temperature change made his skin prickle uncomfortably.

Moriarty put his hands on Sherlock's ribs and stroked up and down his sides. "So smooth," he purred, "I wonder how you'd look with stigmata? But, no, I said I wouldn't, didn't I?" He smiled down at Sherlock, his eyes cold and remote, contrasting strangely with the upturn of his lips.

Sherlock maintained his composure as Moriarty's hands brushed over his nipples, and even when one nipple was pinched painfully hard. Moriarty frowned and pinched it again, this time twisting as well, and earned a grimace and sharp intake of breath from Sherlock. Moriarty smiled a little at the reaction, and slid his fingers down into the warm hollows of Sherlock's underarms, rubbing his fingertips through the hair there before raising one hand to his nose and deeply inhaling the scent he'd gathered.

"You're afraid," he stated to Sherlock.

"I'm stressed. There's a difference."

"You're protesting," Moriarty countered, "And I know fear when I smell it." He then knelt and pressed mouth and nose to Sherlock's underarm, drawing in a deep breath of Sherlock's sharp, musky perspiration. "Such a distinct smell, fear," he murmured, then shifted over a bit and pressed his lips to Sherlock's briefly. "And it's _all_ over you."

He stood and turned his attention to Sherlock's lower half, his captive's hips suspended conveniently in front of his face. He ran his palms firmly over the soft bulge in Sherlock's trousers, then began to feel around delicately with his fingertips, carefully kneading and tracing the contours of the organs where they lay vulnerable to his touch. 

Deeply mortified, Sherlock could feel the first stirrings of an erection beginning in response to the stimulation and he tried to deflect the reaction by visualising random unrelated images, but with only moderate success. His penis increased noticeably in size despite his efforts, though it wasn't close to full hardness. Moriarty seemed pleased all the same. He pressed his mouth to Sherlock's trousers and forced a hot breath through the fabric, the heat and humidity arousing Sherlock's body further, even while his horrified mind rebelled. Moriarty began to unfasten Sherlock's flies and soon had trousers and pants pulled out of the way, leaving Sherlock's partial erection fully exposed. 

"Oh, gorgeous. Will you look at that?" Moriarty commented and slid his fingers lightly down it. Sherlock's insides squirmed at the contact. "Who's touched this, I wonder? Your big brother, I suppose, giving you a bath when you were just a rug rat. Yes?" Sherlock clenched his jaw and would have flushed red if his face hadn't already been flooded with blood. He kept his mouth shut, though his mind was filled with cutting retorts.

"Did you have any friends at school? Hmm?" Moriarty leaned back to gaze at Sherlock's face. "Any little teenage boyfriends? Do any fooling around?" Sherlock kept his expression carefully blank; there was no way he'd let Victor be dragged into this. Not after what had happened to John. And especially considering he'd never received more from Victor than a chaste kiss. "No? Pity. Well, not everyone can be popular, as you're well aware." Moriarty squeezed Sherlock's erection lightly with a warm hand.

"Who else?" Moriarty wondered, using the index finger of his other hand to stroke delicately around the head. "What about your little pet? I bet he's just _salivating_ to suck you off whenever you feel your ego slipping. Just like the faithful little dog that he is."

Sherlock's body responded instantly to this startlingly obscene idea, his penis swelling and lengthening still further despite his best efforts to clear his mind of the image Moriarty had planted there. He closed his eyes, mortified.

"Oh! You like that idea, don't you? Your precious John with his mouth all stuffed full of your cock? Looking at you _adoringly_ like he does?" Sherlock could feel his heartbeat between his legs as Moriarty's combination of shocking imagery and rough language stirred the animal desire that normally slept peacefully within him. "I bet he swallows every drop of come you shoot into his mouth, doesn't he?" That comment left Sherlock at once achingly hard and miserably embarrassed. He felt Moriarty take his erection in hand and begin stroking up and down the length with a closed fist, his movements well-practised and surprisingly careful.

"Come on, Sherlock. Tell me about him," Moriarty prompted, "Does he ever jerk you off in the middle of a case? In the back of a cab, maybe? Or maybe it's something more like this."

Moriarty took Sherlock's hard penis into his mouth and began to caress it with his tongue. Sherlock glanced up involuntarily, shocked at the sudden contact, but the sight of Moriarty's mouth enveloping him was too disgusting to contemplate, so he shut his eyes again and let his mind's eye fill with the only acceptable image he could find: John. He could handle all of this if he could only convince himself that he was with John. Moriarty had been entirely too accurate in his judgement of Sherlock's taste.

Sherlock never thought much about sex in his daily life; it was irrelevant to him, personally, and he masturbated simply to keep his intellect free of base distractions. His only concern with the topic was considering how sexual relationships played into crimes, and the ways that sexual maturity created broad behavioural changes in most people. But now, he could not avoid the topic, and as much as it shamed him, his only thought now about his current situation was that it would have been so much more bearable had it been his best friend who was touching him in such an intimate manner and not a fairly loathsome acquaintance.

The lips slipped from his erection and Moriarty's voice broke into his thoughts. "Hmm, or maybe I'm wrong? He doesn't want you at all, does he? Quite the ladies' man, your John; not one for the fellas, is he, especially not a great gangling weirdo like you."

Something in Sherlock's chest curled up painfully at those words, despite his commands to himself to let the things he was hearing slip by like water. Moriarty was more skilled than Sherlock had thought he would be at hunting out the old tender places and jabbing right at them, bruising the soft spots all over again, drawing blood and pain right out to the surface.

Sherlock knew with a certainty that Moriarty's intimate knowledge of this hidden area of Sherlock's heart had to stem from personal experience; a man like him could only ever have been lonely in the world they both inhabited, and only the truly lonely could ever fully understand one another. But Sherlock also knew that to try to turn this weapon on his captor would be futile. The man was not one who could be emotionally manipulated so easily, especially when he had his prey right where he wanted him.

No, Sherlock realised that the easiest way out of this situation was not one in which he fought back, but one in which he gave in to the demands on his body as quickly as he could. Give Moriarty what he clearly wanted and have done with it. He took a deep breath to prepare himself for what he had to do.

* * *

Something was wrong. Sherlock's appointment with his client had come and gone, John forced to turn the woman away, though he'd taken down some notes about her case to make her feel better before he'd escorted her to her car. Sherlock had never missed an appointment before. Not once in the time John had known him. It was also unlike him to ignore John's texts entirely; he would usually tell John to stop bothering him about food, if nothing else. John had good intuition and right now it was telling him to be worried, _very_ worried. He was concerned enough that he'd called the surgery to warn them that he wouldn't be able to make it in that day, though he knew it wouldn't do anything good for his professional credibility, which had already suffered considerably due to his association with Sherlock.

He paced the sitting room, staring at his phone, at the series of unanswered texts to Sherlock, and battered his brains over what he should do. He tried calling, but Sherlock's phone went directly to voicemail. _Mycroft!_ John thought next, and began feverishly rooting through Sherlock's papers, trying to find contact information for the elder Holmes amongst the mass of case information and reference materials that cluttered the flat. He even ventured into Sherlock's bedroom to continue his search, but after a half hour of fruitless hunting all around the flat, he gave up.

He tried searching Mycroft's name online, but nothing came up, naturally, so he did the only thing left to him as an option, and went outside, located the nearest CCTV camera and frantically waved his arms at it, ignoring the stares of passersby, hoping that his plea for help would reach Sherlock's brother before something awful happened. He might not know where Sherlock was, but he was certain it wasn't anywhere good.

Back inside the flat he went upstairs to his bedroom and retrieved his gun from its hiding place, loaded it, and returned to the sitting room to wait for something, anything, to happen.

* * *

Sherlock shut his eyes tightly and focussed intently on an image of John kneeling before him where he lay on the sofa at Baker Street, John's eyes as warm and steady as his hands as he softly opened Sherlock's dressing gown and began to pleasure him with expert fingers.

Lord knew Sherlock had entertained this fantasy many times in the past several months, though he was usually quick to push it away as soon as the thought entered his mind. No need get too attached to fantastical ideas, he reminded himself when he caught his thoughts wandering down that treacherous road. Now, however, fantastical was exactly what he needed to banish the reality he was not willing to participate in, which was currently campaigning to overtake his senses.

He envisioned the scene with as much clarity as he would normally employ for a case, deciding on late afternoon lighting to give the sitting room a warm glow, and raising the ambient temperature just slightly to accomodate his nakedness. John he dressed in the sleek black jacket that had become his favourite of his friend's wardrobe, the midnight tones contrasting fetchingly with John's hair, bringing out the gold in it. John's hands were soft and his touch firm, in Sherlock's mind, and John's eye crinkled round the edges in a fond smile as Sherlock thrust a little against John's hands, a wave of desire curling through Sherlock's bared abdomen.

 _Now_ he was getting somewhere with this getting off business.

Sherlock altered his mental image to fit the sensations that he was receiving; soon he had John's lips assisting his hands at their task and his erection hardened further in response to that deeply erotic sight, the intensity of his liking for this fantasy that he had heretofore forbidden himself almost pulling him out of his concentration before he mastered his wonder at the sheer pleasure such a simple thought could bring. He allowed himself the indulgence of a few selfish thrusts when John's mouth sank down to envelop him in wet heat, safe in the knowledge that he could do no harm, or at least none that he cared to consider.

Sherlock's fantasy was abruptly blown away like smoke on a high wind when Moriarty unexpectedly pushed himself in closer to Sherlock, his groin pressing hotly to Sherlock's face, erection against his cheek. The closeness and heat were quickly stifling and the pungent scent of Moriarty's arousal wove its way into the depths of Sherlock's brain, to the animal within that Sherlock made such effort everyday to transcend, and Sherlock's body responded to this stimulus without his choosing, without his consent. This was what disturbed him the most: the idea that his own person could be beyond his control, tied to ancient instincts that functioned separately from his will, from a place deeper than his logical, rational mind could reach. He did not feel fully in possession of himself, but as if he was being carried helplessly along by a great wave, soon to be dashed on the rocks of his primal fear and desire.

Moriarty's hand reached round to the back of Sherlock's head, holding him in place by his hair as Moriarty rubbed himself forcefully against Sherlock's face. With an upwelling of revulsion, Sherlock could feel a wet spot beginning to form on the fabric of Moriarty's shorts where they touched his cheek. Moriarty's hands moved back up to Sherlock's hips, one hand curving around the back of a thigh to caress the sensitive inner region of skin, the other stroking firmly over Sherlock's hard length where it lay against his belly. Sherlock plunged himself back into his imagined world as quickly as he could, John's hands replacing the ones that should not, should _absolutely not_ , be touching his body. 

He sank into the fantasy, allowed it to arouse him, wanted it to finish him, make him come so that this situation could finally be at an end. _John's_ fingers were gripping and stroking his erection. _John's_ rough palm was cupping his arse. It was _most definitely_ John's tongue that was slipping against the coronal ridge and licking up his arousal as it dripped from him. He imagined burying his nose in John's pubic hair, taking in the strong scent and memorising-- 

"What are you thinking about, Sherlock?" Moriarty broke into his thoughts. "Are you thinking of him? So sweet. Well, here's an idea for you: Imagine him between your legs, cock up your arse, giving you a nice, hard fuck."

That did it. Sherlock gasped loudly and came in four long spurts under Moriarty's swiftly working hand, his mind blanking out for a brief, terrifying second at the peak of his pleasure. The come ran down Sherlock's belly and chest in warm rivulets and he felt Moriarty's other hand slicking through it, rubbing it across his skin. He opened his eyes as the pain-killing effect of his orgasm gradually wore away, and glanced up at his aching ankles, now more noticeable for having been temporarily soothed, but found his eyes drawn to the unexpected sight of Moriarty avidly licking his come from his fingers as if it was clotted cream. 

"Mmm, I can almost feel them swimming across my tongue," Moriarty remarked. "It's really too bad we can't make babies, Sherly. Just imagine what clever bastards they'd be. Could kill us in our sleep by age fifteen." 

The hand Moriarty had been licking moved down towards Sherlock's face and Sherlock didn't even try to turn away, but remained despondently still as his own semen was smeared across his lips. "Don't you want some?" Moriarty mocked, "It's too good!" He leaned in and began licking in broad swipes across Sherlock's abdomen, slicking up the cooling remains of what had surely been Sherlock's most shameful moment. All at once the depth of his own powerlessness hit Sherlock and he began trembling slightly with the intensity of his bottled-up emotions. A tear escaped his eye, slipping down his forehead, and he hoped with all his might that his captor hadn't noticed. He got hold of himself once more before any further liquid evidence of his distress could leave his eyes, and steeled his face back into the impassive mask that he'd been wearing throughout this hateful encounter.

Every swipe of Moriarty's tongue against his skin was like a blow from a fist to his tattered emotional stability, and he no longer had any control over the reactions of his muscles in response to the fiercely unwelcome contact, his abdomen tensing to the point of pain with every touch, as if his body were trying in its own way to retreat from what it feared. After an interminable time in which Sherlock struggled against the repeated impulse to react violently to Moriarty's assault on his bodily integrity, the touches finally ceased. Sherlock opened his eyes briefly and found that Moriarty was now attending to his own pleasure, opening his shorts and taking his eagerly erect penis in hand, eyes roving Sherlock's bared skin as he pulled and squeezed at himself. 

Sherlock could easily guess what was coming and closed his eyes once more, attempting to prepare himself mentally with another image of John replacing Moriarty in front of him. He pictured himself stretched out on the floor in John's bedroom, John standing astride him, looking down at his nude form with undisguised lust while his hand worked up and down his thick shaft. Sherlock imagined running his hands all over himself for John's benefit, staring unflinchingly into his dear friend's eyes, and even making an obscene gesture with one long finger in his mouth that spurred John's desire to a new urgency, his movements becoming more hurried and more exact. Sherlock envisioned John's muscular legs, the fine hair covering them, the tight sack at the crux of them beneath the hard length that slipped in and out of view as John's fist moved over it, the soft foreskin alternately revealing or concealing the reddened head with each stroke.

The grunts and gasps Sherlock heard became John's and he was able to time his fantasy just right, John's orgasm spilling over into reality and hitting him in the face. He squeezed his eyes still further shut as the warm spurts met his skin, but was surprised to soon feel a hand wiping his face with a cloth, catching the come before it could get into his hair. The bulk of the mess was wiped away before Moriarty stepped back and chuckled to himself, prompting Sherlock to open his eyes.

"Wonderful, Sherlock! You didn't even flinch. I might almost be tempted to think you've done this before, but you haven't, have you?" Sherlock stared silently. "No, I didn't think so. Wasn't it _fun_ , though?" he grinned as he refastened his flies. When he'd finished adjusting himself, Moriarty looked up towards the beam from which Sherlock was suspended. "How are your ankles doing, by the way?"

Sherlock had been so preoccupied with all of the other things that were happening to him that he had quite forgotten about the state of his ankles. But now that he thought of them, he became fully aware of the constant dull ache rolling out in waves from his lower extremities. The pain had increased significantly since he had first woken in his current position, and his left ankle, in particular, was suffering the strain poorly. "Let me down," Sherlock attempted to say, but his voice came out in a hoarse whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again, not caring that such a command was next-to-useless in present company. "Let me down, _now_."

Moriarty waved a hand dismissively and then wandered off in the direction of the door once more. Sherlock heard it open and close and the footsteps returned to him, the other man now holding his mobile and fiddling with the buttons. He took a few steps back from Sherlock and aimed the phone at him, and Sherlock realised with a sickening feeling that he was taking a photograph. Seemingly unsatisfied with his first shot, Moriarty took two more, Sherlock nearly flinching each time at the sound of the shutter. When he'd finished, Moriarty approached Sherlock and crouched down next to him, a hand gripping Sherlock's arm for balance, and held the phone in front of his face, his breath tickling Sherlock's cheek. His proximity filled Sherlock with revulsion and Sherlock tried to look away, wished his body far away, but Moriarty wouldn't allow this. "Sherlock, if you don't look at these I will poke out your right eye and take it home with me." He squeezed Sherlock's arm threateningly, driving his thumb painfully deep into the bundle of nerves and muscles until it was stopped by bone. Sherlock's heart began unexpectedly slamming into his ribs, startling him, and he hesitated. "You know I mean it," Moriarty said coaxingly, as if to a small child who was refusing to eat his vegetables. Sherlock had to agree, he undoubtedly meant it, and as Sherlock intended to leave with his binocular vision intact, he looked. He looked despite every inclination not to, despite the creeping paralysis that was coming over his limbs as his ocean of adrenaline went unused, despite the fiery fear that flared in his gut as he beheld the concrete evidence that he was not, in fact, in control of his own life or death. 

Seeing the photographs of himself, helpless, seemed to truly make real everything that was happening to him, and that reality was something his mind could not objectively face. He could coolly view any number of crime scene photographs without allowing his emotions to master him, but he now discovered that when it was himself who was the subject of the images he could not control his reactions, and this compounded his shame and filled him with self-loathing for the utter weakness he was displaying. The expression his face now took on as Moriarty scrolled through the images might not have signified much to most outsiders, but Moriarty was fully aware of the inner turmoil represented by the twitching of Sherlock's lip, the straining of the muscles lining his jaw, and the line that formed between his brows. 

"Aw, don't take it so hard, beautiful," Moriarty said, a mocking smile curving lips and reaching his dark, cold eyes. "Let's do just one more, shall we?" His hand came down to grip Sherlock's hair and he turned Sherlock's face towards him, needing to use no force to rearrange Sherlock's now-limp body as he pleased. Sherlock did nothing more than close his eyes as Moriarty pressed their lips together and snapped a photo, and he stared blankly ahead, unseeing, as the other man busied himself with the phone's settings. "Can't resist _one_ more!" Moriarty announced, and the result showed a grinning Moriarty cheek-to-cheek with a Sherlock whose expression of thinly veiled despair came as a shock to him when Moriarty insisted he view it. 

"Don't we just look _fabulous?_ But it's time to say goodbye, now, Sherlock. As fun as this has been, I've got more important things to be doing." Moriarty now retrieved a hypodermic syringe from where it had been concealed under his shirt, taped to his skin. "I'll just leave you a little something to remember me by..."

With this, Moriarty slid the needle into Sherlock's gluteus muscle and the world went promptly black.

* * *

When he returned to consciousness Sherlock found himself lying on the floor of the warehouse, beneath the beam he'd been suspended from. His shirt and trousers were once more fastened and his jacket and shoes were carefully folded and arranged next to him. There were no signs that anyone else had ever been there with him, and he let his eyes close again and drifted for some time in and out of uneasy sleep, his exhausted body crying out for rest.

When he opened his eyes again the sun was in a different position and he could hear his phone ringing, muffled, in his jacket pocket. The world felt strangely dreamlike to him and he almost didn't answer the call before realising that he would probably need help escaping his current location, and whoever was calling him would probably be able to offer assistance. He felt vaguely disturbed that he didn't know with certainty who was on the other end of the call, but pushed the thought away and rolled laboriously onto his side, hunting through his jacket for his phone, answering the call just before it went to voicemail. The battery was nearly depleted, he noted with alarm.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock? Are you all right? Where are you?" It was John.

"I... uhm, I'm not... I'm not sure where I am." His own lack of articulacy surprised him.

He heard John let out a worried breath. "Are you hurt?"

"Uh, I, uhm. I don't know if I can walk." His ankles, particularly his left one, were throbbing with a low ache that seemed to promise much worse sensations if he were to apply his weight to them.

"Oh, god. Anything broken?"

"No. No, I don't think so. Probably a sprained ankle. John, my battery is about to die."

"Turn on the GPS on your phone; I'll come find you."

"Have you been training at the Mycroft School of Stalking?" Sherlock joked feebly.

"Shut up and turn on your GPS. We'll get you a new phone."

Sherlock sighed, but obeyed. He always disabled navigation and GPS applications on his phone as they made him much too easy to track. He genuinely wondered how Moriarty had achieved his capture, as he made it a point to notice anyone who was following him, and had evaded attacks and ambushes on a fair number of occasions. Perhaps the afore-mentioned "Sebastian" had something to do with it. He'd have to be on his guard.

There was a tense moment as they waited for John's software to locate Sherlock's phone, both silently pleading for the battery to hold out. "Ok," John blurted out, "I've got your signal. I'm on my way."

"Bring your gun," Sherlock replied and ended the call. The little battery icon was flashing red, and a few moments later the screen went black. He rolled onto his back once more, eyes roving but not taking in his surroundings. He felt strangely disorientated in his mind, like he couldn't firmly grasp a thought and follow it. This frightened him.

Well, if he couldn't think, he had to act. He sat up and grabbed his shoes and socks to try putting them on. The socks he managed to coax onto his feet, but he gave up on the shoes after his third attempt to squeeze his foot in resulted in the same sharp pain as the other two tries. He pulled on his jacket, picked up his shoes, took a deep breath to steady his nerves, and got quickly to his feet. Just as quickly he found himself back down on his hands and knees, gasping with pain. His left ankle felt like it had been kicked with a steel-toed boot when he put weight on it. Walking was out. He laced his shoes onto his beltloops, then crawled towards the door Moriarty had entered through. The door was open, as expected, and he peered cautiously down the corridor behind it, listening intently for any sign of life.

After half a minute of silence he judged the way clear and crept off down the dim passageway, carefully keeping his left foot from dragging too much on the floor. 

As he approached a junction of his current path with another passage, his heart began to pound swiftly, limbs growing cold, and his body filling once again with adrenaline, and this was so out of the ordinary for him that he sat down abruptly and tried to analyse the sensation, forcing himself to take the slow deep breaths that his body was currently so opposed to. He didn't know how to categorise what he was experiencing and that fact alone frightened him much more than anything that could be waiting in the unseen corridor beyond. He spoke to himself, internally. _Logically, there will be no further interaction with Moriarty today. You must get outside if John is to find you easily. Now, move._ And he did. But it was only once he had his back firmly to the concrete wall of the building's exterior that his heart began to slow and his shaking limbs to quieten.

It was late afternoon, the sun beginning to ripen to rich orange through the dirty air, and even on this winding back street of the great city there were cars passing occasionally. Sherlock craned his neck to gaze up at the tall facade of the building, seeking a name or mark of any kind, a hint as to where he might be, but he found none. There wasn't even any dirt he could analyse, just wide stretches of pavement, brick, and asphalt. He felt adrift in a featureless sea, like a sailor who had dropped his compass into the depths.

Sherlock waited and hoped that John would find him before sundown, as he didn't relish the thought of having to reenter the building to conceal himself from London's night people. He busied his hands with polishing the scuffs off his shoes to keep his mind occupied with something less distressing than his current situation, glancing up at every vehicle that approached. At last, as the sun began to dip behind the structures blocking the western horizon, Sherlock looked up to see a black cab approaching quickly. The door swung open and John leapt out even before the vehicle had stopped completely. "Sherlock!" he exclaimed, jogging quickly to his friend's side where the other man sat on the pavement.

Sherlock had never been more pleased to see John than at this moment, but this feeling was quickly tempered with annoyance when John immediately knelt down and started poking and prodding at him, peeling his eyelids back to get a good look at his pupils' response to extra light, taking his pulse, asking him his full name and today's date, feeling for broken ribs...

"John!" 

John's hands retreated from Sherlock's sides, and he looked Sherlock in the eyes. Sherlock felt strangely relieved to have John's hands off of him, but he shoved the sensation aside and said, "It's my ankles that are injured. The rest of me is fine."

John looked concerned and sceptical. "No head injury?"

"None," Sherlock confirmed.

"You sounded pretty strange on the phone. Will you at least let me check your skull?"

Sherlock agreed, allowing John to press his fingertips gently all across his scalp, and asking Sherlock to hold up a hand if he felt any pain. Once John was satisfied that Sherlock had suffered no damage to the area, he carefully pulled down the other man's socks to examine his ankles. He grimaced a little at the left one, and Sherlock could see the dark bruise that had formed there.

"We've got to get you to hospital," John said. "This could be broken."

Sherlock sighed impatiently and rolled his eyes, about to protest, but John cut him off with a sharp glare. John then turned and motioned to the cabbie to roll down his window. The driver, who had been watching anxiously as John examined Sherlock, immediately asked what he could do to help. John and the driver soon had Sherlock's lanky form supported between them, helping him into the cab, keeping his weight off his feet.

John had Sherlock sit facing him on the rear bench seat, Sherlock's coat that John had brought along bunched into a cushion at the detective's back, and Sherlock's feet pulled up onto his shoulders. "We've got to keep these elevated, or you'll have a much bigger problem than a sprain," John explained, and dug through his hastily-packed hold-all of medical supplies for the bag of frozen peas he'd brought to put on Sherlock's ankle.

Sherlock nodded, but he felt deeply uncomfortable with the position he was in. It felt extremely vulnerable even though he knew rationally that John was on his side. He remained silent and tried to focus on determining his location based on the view from the windows.

After letting him rest for a bit, John insisted that Sherlock pass some more tests to confirm that his memory and neurological function were intact, and Sherlock spent the rest of the ride to hospital answering questions about his past and current life events, tracking John's finger with his eyes, and performing small motor tasks. It kept his attention away from the somewhat panicky, squirming sensation in his gut, so he didn't protest the monotonous tasks, but let John put him through the paces without interruption.

* * *

Two hours later, they were at last approaching 221b, and Sherlock sighed deeply with sheer relief to see the familiar doorway coming into view.

He had left hospital with crutches, compression wraps, a bottle of pain pills, a diagnosis of a stretched ligament in his right ankle, a slightly torn one in his left, and a stubborn doctor promising to keep him off his feet for two weeks. He made it into 221b on his own, at his own insistence, but John was not about to allow him to attempt the stairs by himself. John put aside one of the crutches and positioned his shoulder under Sherlock's arm, wrapping his own arm around the narrow ribs and encouraging Sherlock to put his weight on him to get the more injured foot up to the next step. Sherlock nearly froze in place at the sensation of John's arm around him, and an unsettling chill rolled down his spine, but he forced himself to ignore the feeling.

A sudden sound of keys in the front door was followed quickly by light footsteps and an unhappy exclamation from Mrs. Husdon. "Oh, Sherlock! What's happened to you?"

"I'll be fine, Mrs. Husdon," he managed to squeeze out past the nervous tightness of his throat. John's fingers were digging into his ribs. 

"He'll be fine in a fortnight," John clarified, grunting as Sherlock leaned onto him again. "He's got two sprained ankles and has to stay off his feet."

"Oh, goodness. _You're_ all right, John, I hope?"

"Perfectly fine, though I'll be better once he's not crushing me like a bug," he joked as he lifted Sherlock's weight up another step. 

Mrs. Hudson sighed with all the worry that could be put into an exhalation and said, "Well, don't you boys worry about cooking. I'll bring you up some supper in an hour."

"Thank you very much, Mrs. Hudson," John replied, "That's really generous of you." Sherlock was feeling so uncharacteristically vulnerable that he felt he wanted to thank her as well, but just then John's grip round him tightened and his voice fled and refused to come back for several minutes, by which time Mrs. Hudson had already gone.

* * *

Sherlock ended up situated on the sofa in the sitting room, insisting that he would be able to attend to any cases that cropped up in the next two weeks that did not require leg-work, and that it would therefore be best for him to spend his time in the sitting room, rather than his bedroom, despite the increased distance from the bathroom. John could find no objection to him working provided he stayed off his feet, and fetched Sherlock's pyjamas, dressing gown, and pillow so Sherlock could make camp for the night where he was, then gathered his flatmate's laptop, case paperwork, nicotine patches, and various books and references that Sherlock specified, placing them in easy reach of the sofa. John then puttered about in the kitchen for a bit as Sherlock rearranged things to his liking, returning to his friend's side with two cups of tea and leaving the kitchen several plates cleaner than it had been.

"So... are you going to tell me what happened?" John coaxed, setting down the mugs on the coffee table and moving to retrieve several pillows. He gently lifted Sherlock's feet to put the pillows under them and settled into the chair he'd placed next to the sofa.

Sherlock looked away for a moment, then answered, "Moriarty happened."

John's expression turned serious. "Again? Already?" 

"Yes, again. I wasn't expecting it, John." Sherlock felt suddenly inexplicably anxious, but pressed on. "You know I would have told you after what you went thr--"

"Of course," John assured him, though Sherlock thought he looked a little perplexed at this seeming uncertainty in his friend's manner. He _was_ behaving strangely, wasn't he? No wonder John had assumed a head injury.

"Someone -" Sherlock continued, "I don't think it was him - came upon me unawares and injected me with a substance that knocked me unconscious almost immediately. I awoke inside the building where you found me, restrained and unable to free myself." 

"How is it that only your ankles were injured?"

"He hanged me by them."

John's eyebrows raised and then he looked a bit angry. "Jesus. What did he want this time? Was he trying to get information from you?"

Sherlock hesitated slightly, then answered, "Not exactly. He provided more information than I did, actually. His intent appeared to be at least partly to intimidate me."

"Bastard," John spat, "What did he tell you?"

"He let me know about a partner of his who he called "Sebastian", and I think we'll need to be on the look-out for this person; he may have been the one who stalked and captured me."

"Any idea what he looks like?"

"Tall and very fit. Adept at remaining unseen by his quarry, which will present a problem in identifying him." John sat back in his seat, looking concerned and pensive. He remembered his tea and took a long sip, and Sherlock went on: "I'll ask Mycroft for anything he can find, but it's entirely possible that this man has remained undetected by the local networks until now. He doesn't quite fit the profile of anyone I'm familiar with." 

"Are we going to be safe, here?" John asked. "Is there any immediate threat?"

Sherlock pondered the problem for a moment. "No, no, I don't think so. What was done to me was clearly entirely deliberate and meant to slow me down." Sherlock released a noise of frustration. "I'm _certain_ that Moriarty's out there, preparing mayhem, planning something. I can feel it. He's got me right where he wants me."

"Not on the street?"

"Exactly. Trapped by my weak, useless body."

"I wouldn't exactly call it weak," John remarked, but Sherlock was not listening.

"If only I could be out there, following his traces..."

"I could go in your stead. Just tell me what to look for."

"No, until I can identify his huntsman, neither of us is safe tracking him alone. If we stick to our simple routines it should be all right, but to go after him would be to make our next move, which would signal him to come and _play_." Sherlock grimaced and spat the last word as if it was poisoned. He grabbed his mug and sipped it moodily, his eyes losing focus as he entered his inner world, and John was about to speak when the door suddenly opened and in stepped Mycroft. John whirled round at the sound, his hand flying to the gun which was still in his waistband, and this caused him to miss the fact that Sherlock nearly jumped out of his skin in response to the unexpected intrusion. This was not lost on Mycroft, however, who managed to catch the tail end of Sherlock's fearful expression before his brother steeled his features back into a blank mask. Mycroft himself looked harried and stressed, even to John, who noticed the creases round his brows and the tightness of his mouth, lips pursed with worry. 

"I see you're still in one piece," Mycroft said to Sherlock, looking him over where he lay on the sofa. Mycroft's eyes fixed on John. "What was the problem?"

"He's _mostly_ in one piece," John corrected, "but he'll tell you about it. Basically, I couldn't find him, he was late for an appointment, and I knew something wasn't right." John shrugged. "Sorry to have brought you here for nothing, but it could actually have been very serious."

Sherlock was looking between the two of them curiously. "How did you summon Mycroft?" he asked John, looking a tiny bit amused. 

John turned to him. "I waved my arms at a CCTV camera. Didn't think it would work, but..." He indicated the tall figure of Mycroft.

Mycroft looked displeased, but also much more relaxed than when he'd first entered the room. "John, your phone, please," he said, and it was much more an order than a request. John glanced at Sherlock first, and Sherlock nodded, so John pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it over to the elder Holmes, who began tapping away on it. "Sherlock, do please explain what it is that's brought me here today, and why don't you offer me a chair while you're at it." He didn't look up from what he was doing on the small screen.

Sherlock looked annoyed, but John immediately stood and offered his seat. "I'm sorry. Where are my manners? Please sit down." Mycroft perched himself somewhat awkwardly on the hard chair, as if he was accustomed to far greater comfort in his furniture, and crossed his legs. He hit a few more buttons on the phone, then handed it back to John with a 'thank you', and John was not sure if it was for the chair, the phone, or both. "Would you like something to drink?" he ventured, hoping Mycroft wouldn't ask for anything besides tea, as he was fairly sure the only other potable liquid in the flat, milk, had gone lumpy several days ago. 

"Thank you, but no," Mycroft replied, and turned his attention back to Sherlock. "You, dear brother, could take some useful lessons from this flatmate of yours. He's terribly hospitable."

"Oh, do shut up, Mycroft."

Mycroft let out a long-suffering sigh and glanced back at John. "You see what I've had to deal with all these years? I don't know how you manage." John remained neutrally silent and suppressed a grin. These two were absurd.

"Yes, poor Mycroft," Sherlock snapped sarcastically, and John couldn't help remarking that Mycroft really seemed to be getting Sherlock's goat today, "You might even think he'd been strung up by his ankles all afternoon, as bad off as he is."

Mycroft's expression became instantly sharpened and focussed and he glanced at Sherlock's feet, so obviously elevated and carefully wrapped. "Are they broken?" he asked.

"Do they _look_ as if they've got casts on?"

"You've been known to do stupid things in the past where your health was concerned, so surely you can't fault me for asking."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but agreed that this was reasonable and relented slightly. "No, they're not broken, they're badly sprained. Moriarty did it, and he has a new partner in crime whom I've not yet had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face."

"He captured you."

"Yes. I'm about ninety-eight percent certain it's no one we're familiar with."

"Hmm, well, we soon will be," murmured Mycroft, his eyes steely. 

The sound of Mrs. Hudson ascending the stairs now reached the three pairs of ears in the flat and John went to help her with the tray she was carrying, relieving her of the heaviest item and bringing it to the kitchen as the Holmeses spoke quietly to each other.

"Oh, Mycroft! Hello, dear," Mrs. Hudson greeted him, "If you'd like to stay for supper, I think there's enough for three."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, but I fear I must be going. Sherlock's gotten himself into some special new trouble and it seems my immediate assistance will be required." He rose from his seat, looking down on his brother with a concern that made Sherlock want to shove him out the door. "Do please take care of yourself, Sherlock," he said, and Sherlock wondered briefly whether Mycroft had noticed whatever it was that John had noticed about him that was now different, but brushed the idea away. Sherlock wouldn't be speaking of it to anyone, so it hardly mattered who noticed. 

Mycroft said his goodbyes to John, who was dishing up food from the serving bowls, and to Mrs. Hudson, who was fussing over the ugly mess in the kitchen, and left in not at all as quiet a manner as he'd come. Sherlock could almost hear each step he took, this time, and the front door's opening and shutting was obvious. No car door was to be heard, however, so Sherlock was able to relax a little knowing that it wasn't his own deficiency that had caused him to miss Mycroft's arrival.

John had just managed to convince Mrs. Hudson that it would be deleterious to Sherlock's level of emotional health for her to throw out the coagulated blood samples in the fridge, and escort her out of the flat before Sherlock could attempt to come and rescue his project, when Sherlock began to think aloud in the way that was usual to him when he was very preoccupied with something. "His car was clearly parked elsewhere or I certainly would have noticed its presence. I can't quite imagine him putting in the effort to walk any distance, but I suppose he thought it prudent."

John picked up on Sherlock's train of thought and answered him. "I don't know how he snuck up on us like he did. Those stairs usually let us know well ahead of time." He was carrying two full plates and some flatware out to the coffee table, and Sherlock moved his eyes from the far wall to John's face at the sound of John's voice.

"He can be a bit like a cat when it pleases him," Sherlock remarked. "He used to catch me stealing things from his room with that talent."

"Stealing what?" John grinned, setting the food down.

"Books, money, cigarettes, condoms - the usual adolescent requirements."

"Condoms?" John raised an surprised eyebrow. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, looking slightly sceptical. "Do tell."

"There's nothing _to_ tell. Neither of us had any use for them in the traditional sense, but he's such a neat-freak that... well, never mind, but I used to steal them and hide them from him and it drove him up the wall. Highly entertaining to an 11-year-old with nothing better to do on a rainy day."

John snorted with mirth and picked up his plate, taking a big bite of ham and potato. "I used to steal Harry's bras sometimes," John volunteered, "But then she beat me up for it, so I decided it was best to quit."

"I never have understood the fascination with mammary glands," Sherlock replied, and was about to continue on this theme, but John coughed and quickly interrupted with, "Your food's getting cold." He pointed at it with his fork. Sherlock regarded the cooling plate with the interest that might typically be accorded a very dull textbook that one is required to read, but picked it up and reluctantly began nibbling at its offerings to prevent any further food-related remonstrances from John. He always found it difficult and undesirable to eat anything when he was fully mentally-engaged with a problem. Digestion diverted too much of his energy away from his brain. He absently picked up his mug and took a sip, grimaced at the cold tea that hit his tongue, and put it back down again, remembering a question he'd stored away earlier. "What did he do with your phone?"

"No idea. Let's find out, shall we?" John set his plate down and pulled the phone from his pocket, browsing through its contents, searching for discrepancies. "Ah, here we go." John handed the phone to Sherlock and Sherlock saw the new entry in John's contacts, "In Case of Emergency ONLY". 

"Hmm, new number. Must have created it especially for you."

"Really?" John looked surprised as he took back the phone.

"Mycroft was actually enthralled by James Bond for about a year when he was seven. I stole his old diary to find that one out. He's _still_ in love with all that sort of high-tech cloak-and-dagger rubbish."

"I thought _you_ liked that sort of 'rubbish' as well," John teased.

"No, I like to _uncover_ that sort of rubbish and ruin everyone's fun, remember?"

John smiled and finished chewing his mouthful before answering, "You know, I'm actually just shocked that he and I have anything in common."

"You might mention it to him sometime. I'd like to see the look on his face."

"Fat chance. He'd have me shipped to Mongolia."

"Yes, and then I would have to come find you and it would all be terribly exciting. We could live in a yurt. What's not to like?"

"You're in a funny mood tonight, Sherlock. You sure you're not still drugged?" John joked.

The slight smile that had been on Sherlock's face faltered and fell and his eyes dropped from John's. He grabbed the cold tea and took a long sip, and John felt like an utter idiot. "I'm sorry, Sherlock, that was crass and I shouldn't have blurted it out."

"No, it's... fine." Sherlock sat up and reached for his crutches, still not looking John in the eye. What was wrong with him? Why was John reacting to him this way? He'd been enjoying connecting with John socially even more than he usually did, and he guessed he must have let down his guard too much for John to be able to see whatever it was that Moriarty had done to him. To his mind. He felt out of control for the second time that day as he realised that his usual mask was cracked and others around him could see the face he hid beneath it. He felt abruptly panicky, as though he needed to lock himself in a room, alone, as he felt John's eyes on him in his peripheral vision, his skin growing cold and his heart stuttering alarmingly in his chest, the way it had when Moriarty had stared and stared... But this was John, he reminded himself, and he made himself look directly at his friend to cement his current reality in his mind. He became aware of his breathing, which had become shallow, and forced a deep breath into his lungs.

John noticed this as well. "Is it your ankle?" he asked Sherlock, "Do you need the pain meds?"

"Yes," Sherlock lied. As John rose to retrieve the pills, he added, "And could you make sure both the doors are locked, please?"

"On it." 

Sherlock heard the reassuring click of the locks as John checked both doors and felt a mass of tension melt away inside his body, manifesting itself as a sudden rush of perspiration that dampened his clothes. He felt slightly crazy and extremely confused and put in extra effort to mask himself again as John returned to him, swallowing the pills John handed him and then requesting assistance drawing a bath. Lord knew he needed one after today's ordeal. Once the water was running, Sherlock figured out how to gain his feet from where he sat on the sofa, with John hovering close in case of mishaps. He succeeded with only a little wobbling and made it to the bathroom without incident, where he sat on the chair that John had placed next to the tub. 

John put the crutches to one side and then very unexpectedly knelt down in front of Sherlock and carefully picked up one of Sherlock's feet. Sherlock felt his surprise turn into a highly uncomfortable arousal as John's hands gently removed the compression wrap and sock from his foot, and he was speechless for a moment or two at the unwelcome pleasure of John's warm fingers on his skin. "I can manage," he growled when he regained his voice, annoyed and deeply embarrassed. He didn't need to be reminded of his silly fantasies, but this sight before him was getting much too close for comfort. He pulled his foot away.

"Yeah, yeah, all right," John replied, getting to his feet, "But if I hear you fall over, I'm coming in," he warned, and shut the door after himself as he went out.

Sherlock waited till he heard John's footsteps retreating to the kitchen, then sighed with relief at finally being left alone. He quickly proceeded to strip off his sweat-soaked clothing, briefly entertaining the notion of burning it all, but dismissed the thought and settled for pushing the pile out of sight with his less-injured foot. It was only now as he took some time to relax in solitude that he realised that he was clean and decidedly not sticky. He carefully felt and examined the areas that had been splattered with semen, but with a sinking feeling discovered they bore no traces of what had happened to him only hours ago. This lack of obvious evidence somehow made the whole thing worse, as if it had never really happened at all except in Sherlock's imagination. Even the shock of seeing the photographs Moriarty had taken now seemed vague and indistinct, dreamlike. He recalled Moriarty's care in keeping his own ejaculate out of Sherlock's hair and knew with sudden clarity that this had been part of Moriarty's planned intent the entire time, to plant a seed of uncertainty and self-doubt in Sherlock's mind - to leave him on shaky mental footing.

He very much hoped the bath might soothe his roiling emotional landscape, as he was finding it confusing and mentally-exhausting to deal with. He manoeuvered himself carefully from the chair to the tub, and sank down into the hot water, suppressing a grimace as a small area of skin on his left thigh began to sting. He spread his legs a bit, tilting his knee outward to take a look at the offending spot, surprised he hadn't noticed it before. His eyes widened as he got a good look at the source of the pain. 

Etched into the flesh of his inner thigh, near the crotch, was the letter M.

It was rendered as a remarkably precise Roman capital with a small serif at the end of each stroke, and was orientated so that it would appear upright to Sherlock as he looked down at his own leg. It was somewhat sizeable, at about three of his fingers in width, but was placed so that it largely disappeared unless his leg was splayed. There was nothing vague or dreamlike about this.

He felt an overwhelming rage surge up inside him at this unexpected additional violation of his person, his mind filling with horrible images of what might have happened to him after Moriarty had given him the injection, and he began to pull the scabs from the red, inflamed flesh of the wound, heedless of the pain this caused. The water surrounding the area was pink with blood when he'd finished, but he splashed it away and then submerged himself completely, letting the hot water soothe his aching joints and muscles.

He hauled himself out of the tub and onto the chair soon after this, using one of his crutches to open the cabinet beneath the sink and fetch the bottle of isopropyl alcohol there. He poured some directly onto the open wound, squeezing his eyes shut and hissing at the fiery pain as the alcohol burned his skin. At least now it wouldn't be infected. With a bit of creativity, he managed to get hold of the first aid kit and waited for the wound to dry completely before bandaging it. This, unfortunately, gave him far too much time to think, allowing his mind to paint a vivid picture of his helpless form lying on the floor of a warehouse mostly naked, while a madman carved lines into his leg. Just the idea that he had no memory whatever of this incident that had very obviously happened to him was enough to summon up the panicky sensation inside him again. Not knowing something important was sufficient to cause him anxiety in his normal day-to-day life, and not knowing something critically important that had happened to him directly... well, he had no words for that feeling.

"John!" he called out, automatically. A brief thought flitted through his head that wondered when John had become his source of comfort, but it got pushed away when Sherlock remembered he was naked and had to scramble for the bath towel to cover himself with.

John was there in moments, having apparently remined in the kitchen to wait, and he opened the door, a look of slight alarm on his face. "Sherlock? What's wrong?" When he saw his friend safely seated and apparently no more injured than he had been when John left him, his expression turned a bit puzzled. There it was again, John thought, as he looked his friend in the face. For a split second he would have sworn Sherlock's eyes were full of a paralysed, mindless fear, but the look had vanished almost immediately to be replaced with Sherlock's usual guarded expression. Well, he _now_ thought of it as guarded, because though he'd seen the man grinning with delight and snarling with rage, when they'd first been getting to know one another he had thought it remarkable the way Sherlock didn't seem to have many facial expressions. He now knew that that was deliberate, and it concerned and disturbed him that he'd caught such a number of glimpses tonight of what was going on under that placid surface. Something was wrong. 

John was at least relieved to have a close-to-full view of Sherlock's skin now, which showed no obvious signs of torture, something he had been worrying about all evening since he'd discovered who was responsible for Sherlock's disappearance. His own encounter with Moriarty had left him with the distinct impression that the man was most definitely the type to use _any_ means available to achieve his goals, and Sherlock's brief description of what had happened to him while he'd been held captive had been enough to make all the alarm bells in John's mind go off at once. He'd been prepared for some pretty ugly injuries under Sherlock's clothing, and was incredibly glad to have been proven wrong on that account. 

"Could... could you fetch my pyjamas, please?" Sherlock said, falteringly, pulling the towel a little more closely around his hips. His face remained a mask of unconcern, but John was not fooled. Still, he decided that tonight was not the time to press the issue, and maybe Sherlock just needed a good night's sleep to reset his brain and give him fresh capacity to sort things out. John wouldn't bring anything up till the morning.

"Yep, just a moment," he said, and went to retrieve the clothing. He handed it to Sherlock, reminding him to put the compression wraps back on, and went out of the bathroom again to give his friend some privacy, considering what he would say tomorrow to get Sherlock to open up about what had really happened with Moriarty. He would need to have all the facts straight if he was to assist Sherlock with this problem, which was something he fully intended to do. Sherlock soon called out to him, and, when he opened the door, asked him for help getting onto the crutches, but John noticed that Sherlock had not dried his hair at all, and that it was still dripping quite a lot onto his t-shirt. Strange behaviour for someone normally so fastidious, but John chalked it up to whatever pressing distractions were currently occupying Sherlock's mind, and decided he would try again to show his friend a little kindness.

"You haven't dried your hair," he said, picking up the towel.

Sherlock blinked at him. "And...?"

"You'll get a mouldy pillow if you start going to bed with wet hair. Here, just hold still." He fully expected Sherlock to protest again, as he had when John had tried to tend to his feet, but was pleasantly surprised when the man remained silent and still as John started to rub the bath towel gently through his hair. Sherlock might be proud, but even the proud need a bit of TLC sometimes, John thought. That was something that most of his fellow soldiers had understood and accepted instinctively, though it wasn't discussed, and ever since his and Sherlock's first encounter with Moriarty, which had cemented their budding connection into a fast friendship, John had often wished that he could create a similar bond with Sherlock to that he'd shared with his brothers-in-arms. Sherlock was a good friend in his own way, but he was also a bit aloof and unapproachable. The simple physical comforts that friends could share with one another didn't seem to be on his radar, and if you needed a hug, Sherlock wasn't the person to ask. But if TLC was ever going to be called for between the two of them, John knew that now was obviously the appropriate moment for it.

Sherlock wanted to tell John to stop. He wanted to be far away from John. But he also didn't. And the towel was covering his face, prompting him to close his eyes, so he didn't have to see John, which made it a little more bearable. The towel also obscured the feeling of John's hands, and he didn't mind that at all, either. Excluding stylists, no one had dried his hair for him this way since university and he had forgotten what a nice thing it was. Overly sentimental and touchy-feely, yes, but then John seemed determined to play the caretaker tonight, and who was he to deny the doctor his natural inclinations? He was just starting to relax into the feeling when John picked up the speed and intensity, giving his head a good hard rubbing, and he made a little hum of surprise and was almost regretful when John removed the towel to survey his hair. 

"You sure you're not part sheep?" John said, deadpan, and reached out a hand to give Sherlock's hair a muss, smiling at the wild curls sticking up everywhere. A chill ran down Sherlock's spine at the touch, and though this time it was far from a bad feeling, he steeled himself against it just the same, wishing all this friendliness would stop. It was difficult enough for him to accept touches from others even under normal circumstances, but tonight, and from John... it was entirely too much. 

"Would you help me stand?" he requested, wanting to get the worst of the touching over and done with. As John's arm slid round his ribs once again he automatically retreated into his mind palace, and didn't even realise he'd done it until John's voice saying his name intruded on his thoughts. He had been browsing through the small drawers that held his tobacco ash samples, touching each one in alphabetical order, and suddenly found himself in the bathroom with crutches under his arms and John tapping him on the shoulder and looking curiously into his face. "Right... thank you," Sherlock said absently, and forced himself to start moving out of the room. John looked as though he wanted very much to say something more, but held his tongue, and Sherlock was glad that he did; Sherlock was barely able to order his thoughts at the moment, and this fact was something he wanted to conceal. It bewildered and frightened him that the effects of what Moriarty had done to him were still as present and intense as they had been in the original moment. He had expected to recover from this misadventure as he had after any of his other difficult cases and be back to his usual self in a predictable amount of time, but this was beginning to seem an unrealistic expectation. 

John assisted him back onto the sofa and Sherlock had to struggle not to lose his sense of reality again as John's proximity sent waves of anxiety coursing through his veins. The anxiety welled up from two distinct and diametrically opposed sources, Sherlock now realised with dismay, and he had no idea at all how to stem the flow. "Sorry to be so much trouble," he said to John. There he went again, blurting out things he would never normally say. He almost wished he could sew his mouth shut until he'd gotten himself back to normal functioning.

"I'm just damned glad that you're ok, Sherlock." John leaned forward and began to reach out as if to put his arms around his friend, but Sherlock put up his hands and leaned away.

"Please don't... don't touch me. It's nothing to do with you; I would just rather not be... touched right now."

"Oh. Oh, of course. Sorry," John said hastily and backed up a step. "Might've guessed," he mumbled, then a bit louder, "Well, good night, Sherlock. If you need anything, just give me a shout. My phone will be right next to me, too." John unlocked the door to make his way up the stairs to his room, and though he shut the door behind him again, Sherlock was now painfully aware of the vulnerability of that entry point to the flat. But what could he do? He wasn't about to ask John to sleep downstairs over something as small and silly as an unlocked door. He reluctantly lay down, his eyes fixed on the doorknob, and tried to summon the exhaustion that he knew was lurking beneath the strange sense of alertness that was currently keeping his eyes wide open.

After fifteen minutes of staring fixedly at the unmoving door, and listening to every small sound the building made as it settled in the cool evening air, the exhaustion began to set in and his mind was able to wander to some of the other things that were pressing in on it. He'd been avoiding thinking about it all evening, but when John had knelt in front of him in the bathroom, a memory had flooded back into his consciousness. He had remembered his last words, the ones he hadn't been able to speak when he had thought he was about to die in the jaws of an attack dog.

All he had wanted in that moment, in what could have been the final moment of his life, was to have John pressed against him as close as physically possible, so he could tell him the truth and make him feel it with his entire body: _"John, I love you so much."_

Sherlock got no sleep at all that night.

~

END PART I

**Author's Note:**

>  **WARNINGS** /kinks/spoilers: non-con, post-traumatic stress, animal cruelty, psychological torture, psychological injury, threats, humiliation, physical coercion, non-con bondage, dirty talk, hurt/comfort.
> 
> A/N: Images of Galba: [One](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/CaneCorso_%2832%29.jpg), [Two](http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/auto/r/786x0/5/9/593c6-Cane_Corso.jpg)
> 
> A/N: This is the longest piece of writing I've managed to complete, so we'll see if I can't turn this single chapter into a fully-fledged story! I have an outline for the rest of this story, but the project may or may not get finished, depending on how much time I have to write.
> 
> This may seem as though it's going to turn into a "magic healing cock" story, but I promise it won't. I intend for this to be a realistically complicated, imperfect, and bittersweet journey for the characters.


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